1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and apparatus for collecting market survey data and particularly to such methods and apparatus for collecting such data from universal product type coded market items.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Market survey, or market research data has traditionally been recorded for analysis and business purposes by conventionally writing this data down by hand including the units, price, quantity and description of the various market items of interest. This information must then be mailed to the market survey organization where the handwritten data is then keypunched or encoded or optically scanned to be reduced to computer compatible data for subsequent analysis. In recent years, universal product codes, which are bar type codes, have been introduced to the market and appear on many packages and containers with the primary purpose of such codes looking to the future for electronic inventory control and pricing which has been experimentally tried in selected supermarket chains in the United States. This universal product code type information contains unique information from which the manufacturer, size, type, brand, and so forth, of a given market item can be deduced. In addition, other kinds of bar codes and descriptive markings are commonly applied to packages, containers, etc. for the goods or market items.
Traditionally, the universal product type code, which shall be used generically herein for all types of bar codes containing product or market information, has been collected and recorded by optical scanning in which a light sensitive probe is moved across the universal product type code to produce an analog output signal which is subsequently acted upon, such as by a microprocessor or computer, to produce the equivalent machine information corresponding to the universal product type code. In addition, laser beam scanners have also been employed to collect information from such universal product type codes. However, in either event, such prior art systems employ expensive and complex electronics. Nevertheless, these prior art systems still can produce errors due to variations in the speed of movement of the probe across the code when collecting the data. In solving such problems, even more complex microcomputer based systems have been required. While such complex systems have been successfully employed in large retail establishments to obtain such data for these establishments, they have not been successfully employed in the home by the consumer so as to provide market survey data for purposes of market research. One of the primary reasons for this is the complexity and cost of providing such individual units to a market survey panel which may typically consist of several hundred, or even thousands, of members. Nevertheless, efforts have been and are being made to upgrade the manner in which market survey information is collected so as to improve the speed and reliability of such collection in as economical and efficient manner as possible.
As will be described in greater detail hereinafter, the present invention attempts to overcome these problems of the prior art by employing a lenseless data recorder for universal product type code encoded market data in which the information is recorded on a photographic recording medium by reflective photographic recording of the universal product type code data on the medium for the market item in response to the reflection of the image of the universal product type code on to the medium through an exposure aperture when exposed to a light source, such as ambient light, with the further provision of ancillary market survey data on the photographic recording medium corresponding to the market item by direct photographic recording of this ancillary data on to the photographic recording medium. To applicant's knowledge, such lenseless type cameras have not been used in connection with the recording of market survey data, although lenseless cameras in general are known in the art, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,323,364 in which the information is photographically recorded by marking on a translucent writing surface adjacent the piece of photographic film. Another prior art system for recording information without a lens is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,724,310 although such a system is unsatisfactory for use in collecting market survey type information. As will also be described in greater detail hereinafter, the data recorder of the present invention is preferably arranged in a hand held gun form for convenience and, in this regard, it should be noted that there have been prior art gun cameras, such as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,144,267; 1,272,635 and 3,688,665, by way of example. However, none of the prior art gun cameras known to applicant, all of which have lenses, are in any way similar to the present invention for collecting market survey data.